Fighting Back
by Yellow Sunflower
Summary: If this had been any other day, Rachel would have burst into tears. But this was no ordinary day. This was the day Rachel was fighting back.


Everyone said that the photo would get vandalized and graffitied just like every Glee Club picture had been in years before. Rachel didn't believe that. She believed that maybe finally the Glee Club would finally get the respect that they deserved after they had done the mattress commercial. Besides, negative thinking wouldn't get anyone anywhere, so Rachel decided to stay positive.

She walked into the library after school had ended. A few bookworms and bibliophiles were there, working on their homework, but no one that Rachel knew was there. She smiled at the thought of carrying this out with no witnesses. The new Thunderclap yearbook was on display at the librarian's desk. Rachel took the book off of its clear glass stand.

"Hello," she greeted the librarian with an overindulgence of politeness and a charming smile. The librarian, who had not even noticed when Rachel had come into the library, looked up and smiled with the same fake politeness as Rachel displayed. Rachel sat down at one of the tables and opened the red 2009 yearbook.

Leafing through the glossy pages, Rachel counted herself eight times, including in the Amish Union photo and the Gay/Lesbian Alliance photo. Rachel herself wasn't a lesbian, but joining the alliance gave her yet another chance to be pictured in the yearbook. All of the pictures of her so far had been vandalized with devil horns and a Hitler mustache, and sure enough when Rachel flipped past the five pages of Cheerios, there was the Glee Club photo.

It was almost unrecognizable through the black Sharpie.

Rachel looked at herself in the photo. Again, she saw an alternate version of herself, one with devil horns and a Hitler mustache. At the top of the page, the "L" had been crossed out and a "K" was added. "Geek Club".

Everyone else in the picture had been decorated with graffiti as well. Kurt now had a skirt and breasts. Quinn now had an unrealistically large stomach, meant to emphasize her pregnancy even more. Finally, after scanning everyone else's makeovers, her eyes landed on Finn; buck teeth and clown hair.

If this had happened on any other day, Rachel would have burst into tears and ran out of the library, throwing the yearbook onto the floor in the process. Everyone in the library would have seen her outburst and maybe wonder why. But more likely, they already knew, or didn't care, or both.

_But this isn't any other day_, Rachel thought smirking. This was the day Rachel was fighting back.

She turned the pages backward until she reached the team photo of the football players. What Finn had said to her a few days ago replayed in her mind again. _Some of the guys in the locker room were harassing me and they were going to make me choose between a Hitler mustache or buck teeth._

Rachel told herself she was doing this for the entire Glee Club, which she _was_. But there was someone she was doing this for more than the others. She reached into her pocket and pulled out the instrument of her vengeance. As she uncapped the black Sharpie, she thought who she should start with first. By the time she was finished with them, no one would see them the same again. Whenever anyone looked at them in the hallway, they'll remember the Sharpie makeover they got in the pages of the yearbook and then start laughing at them. _Yes_, Rachel thought, _now they will know what it's like when the shoe is on the other foot. _

The librarian coughed. Rachel was startled and nearly fell out of her chair as she whipped her head around to face the librarian. But she wasn't paying attention; she was playing solitaire on her computer.

Rachel turned back around in her chair. The lust of revenge had left her and now she was feeling panicky and paranoid. Then she looked down at the yearbook again and remembered everything that she had just felt towards these football players. The anger again welled up inside her like a slow, smoldering fire and she was no longer thinking about getting in trouble, but whether or not the football jocks would look better with thick glasses or black lips.


End file.
